The art of stupidity

The Jackass guys -- you either love them or hate them. After the first flick made mad money at the box office while garnering terrible reviews from critics nationwide, it was only a matter of time until a sequel came around. Johnny Knoxville swears it wasn't for the money -- the only way another Jackass movie would be made were if enough absurd, death-defying stunts went from paper to successful performance on camera -- and damn, were they successful.\nDodging a bull atop a four-way teeter-totter, jumping a river via giant rocket/rocket wheelchair/rocket bicycle, catching anacondas in a ball pit and -- a personal favorite of mine -- medicine ball dodgeball in the dark are just some of the antics caught on camera. \nGranted there's a lot of comedic stuff going on here, there are plenty of segments that are just disgusting/unfunny after one viewing. Nobody wants to see Steve-O chug a beer into his ass nor watch Knoxville and Spike Jonze wander the Los Angeles streets in old people suits with fake breasts and testicles hanging out for the world to see. I laughed at first, but upon second viewing, I just hit the skip button on my DVD remote.\nLike I said, the guys wanted to raise the stakes this time around. People might remember Knoxville taking a riot gun-launched beanbag to the chest in the first movie -- this time he convinces Bam Margera and Ryan Dunn to stand by his side as they feel the wrath of an embassy mine loaded with hundreds of rubber balls. The end result? More bruises and welts than you've ever seen on a human body and one bawling Bam. \nOn the DVD, you can expect to find well more than an hour of additional and deleted scenes, some of which are quite hilarious (stun gun hot potato), others just downright lame (trash can cymbals). You also get a commentary with all the guys talking about how painful the whole experience was. \nWhat disappointed me the most, though, was the missing scene of Don Vito having a tooth removed via a wire attached to a muscle car. The scene was removed from the theatrical release because of Vito's apparent pedophile arrest and the scene is nowhere on the DVD. I'm sure it is hilarious in an awful kind of way, but because of legal matters, it'll probably never see the light of day. \nWill a third Jackass happen? Bam swears it won't, but given the sequel's box office success and Hollywood's obsession with trilogies, don't count it out of the realm of possibility. You can, however, count on people to cough up their $8 the next time around and the bar to be raised even higher.